Classroom Complexity

Classroom complexity is a term creeping into the educational policy landscape. With it, we’re seeing many ideas about solutions when what we might need are different ways of thinking.

If you have been to school as a teacher, parent, or student recently, you’ll know that the classroom isn’t the same place it once was.

As a teacher, I can relate. I train graduate students and I’ve seen an enormous cultural shift within the classroom — whether that classroom is online or in-person. I have friends who are teachers and some with children and I hear the same thing: the classroom is far more complex than it used to be. Let’s take a look at what it is and what it might mean for us as we consider the role of schools and learning as an institutional enterprise.

What is Going on At School?

“Classroom complexity” is a named policy focus for the Alberta Provincial Government.

In Ontario, recent student attendance records shows that less than 40% of high-school students now are considered to have regular attendance (which is considered to be being in class 90% of eligible school days).

This topic, and the complexity that is considered to be part of the reason for these low numbers, was the focus of a recent edition of CBC’s National weekly call-in show, Cross-Country Check-up. While the prompt for the discussion was high-school attendance, the discussion went far beyond it toward what Alberta is calling classroom complexity. .

To set the stage, a recent report found that fewer than 40% of high school students are considered “regularly attending” school, meaning they are present in class 90% of the time.

Many of the callers to the show were teachers relaying their experiences of classroom life in 2026. One caller mentioned how a student was taken out of school for a family vacation for nearly half of the semester. Others spoke of teens staying home to look after siblings because of parents having to hold down multiple jobs. We hear of students being bored (that’s nothing new), but we also hear of students arriving to school exhausted from managing home life, stresses from transitions, and caregiving duties that go unseen. The presence of screens in school, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic was another reason.

Some blame cellphones and are asking for bans.

Others blame the disruption due to COVID-19 and the lack of funding that came in supporting schools in their recovery.

We hear about the lack of enforcement of existing rules.

There’s also the understanding that the rules — and their application — might no longer be fit for purpose.

Student attention is on the wane, and screens — from assigned laptops and tablets to phone handsets — are a big and contributing factor. Some of these kids were pacified with a screen, so why shouldn’t they expect or want one in school?

Teachers are overloaded. Schools are being asked to serve as educators, entertainers, moral arbiters of life, psychologists, and daycare.

Meanwhile, the student body is more complex than ever.

Classroom Complexity Or Complex Classrooms

Many of these issues are not entirely new, but what is different is the scale, scope, speed, and severity of the issues present in schools and classrooms — whether in public schools, colleges, or universities. Much of what we’ve seen in behaviour has changed, creating a fundamental change in the classroom context.

Much of what was normal, has evolved in how it transpires and manifests in schools.

It’s not that students fight, it’s that they bring weapons. It’s not that they bring a pocket knife, it’s that they might have a gun.

It’s not one or two students having emotional difficulty, it’s that there are 5 or 10 with diagnosable mental disorders.

It’s not students who are slower to learn, have limited language, or have mild cognitive impairments; it’s that we have students with full-blown learning disorders. These are disorders that affect the learner, the learner’s environment, and the teachers and the school overall.

It’s not that children are simply busy; it’s that they are either over-enrolled in extra-curricular programs or have to hold down jobs to support their families.

At the university level, we have students who are enrolled in full-time graduate programs who are also working full-time jobs. Some of these students have families or are caregiving for others.

Special Needs & Standard Models

There was a time when we referred to those with non-typical issues in learning, behaviour, or physical ability as “special needs”. What we are finally learning is that this term is no longer fit for purpose. Whether it’s behavioural differences, cultural or linguistic differences, neurodiversity, or physical differences, a survey of any classroom will find the vast majority of students are “special” when defined this way.

We could always create a separate place for them, as we did with Special Education classrooms, or long before that, just didn’t send them to school at all. We know that this didn’t work. It’s not something that gels with our values, creating inclusive spaces for all people to thrive, and it’s been shown to be highly problematic for individuals, families and communities.

At the same time, we also see problems with the integration model. But what if it was the failure of the model to adapt, rather than the model itself?

Integration works when it’s resourced. Resourcing is predicated on the anticipated number of students who will require specific support and the intensity, persistence, and otherwise manifestation of the issues/symptoms/needs that the student has. One student with mild attentional issues is different than seven students with a wide variety of issues.

Complicating things further, the presence of every additional student requiring specific support and the combination of the different manifestations of those needs in each student, means that teacher attention is diverted in ways that are far more complex than with one or two students.

Let’s add another complication (complexity): the students interact with each other. Thus, there will be emergent behaviours that will create new patterns of classroom activities. Students will be distracted by the distracted teacher (and peers), creating a cascading effect. Students might be more likely to collaborate and co-problem solve due to the lack of attention from teachers, or they may flounder. Some students will independently seek learning options on their own, maybe learning more in the process than they would in a group. Others might be less inclined or able and struggle.

Or, there will be some combination of all of this in the classroom.

Of course, this isn’t limited to one classroom, but almost every one. The effects aren’t limited to students and learning, but also to teachers and their capacity to manage and to teach to the level they need and desire.

The effects spill out through the school. Some schools will see opportunities to build resilience into their students and teachers, maybe rallying around these challenges to innovate and find new ways to address the problem. Maybe this will work. Maybe it will work in the short term, but be difficult to sustain over time. What if there isn’t the energy, the knowledge, the skills, or the overall resources required to pull something like this off.

What if the cumulative effects of what’s happening in the classroom and hallways spill out into home and community life?

And what if those places — home and community — have problems of their own that resemble what we are seeing in schools as parents and caregivers deal with workplaces that might experience similar dynamics, only with adults?

That is what complexity looks like.

Engagement and Enrollment for Complexity

Will adding an occupational therapist, a youth worker, a teacher’s assistant, or other educators to the classroom help? It might. Yet, while much of this problem is due to divided attention and time available, but much of it is not. This is the risk of moving ahead with tactics and strategies that are not aligned to the complexity and changing nature of the problem itself.

If we seek to add more elements to the existing model, we risk worsening the problem when the issue lies in the model itself.

Schools are to prepare students for work and civic life by raising awareness of the world, imparting skills, creating experiences, and providing opportunities to grow as people. It does this through a model based on classroom instruction and practical opportunities (community service, sports, arts, and culture activities), and on regular attendance and adherence to a curriculum that is an evolved version of one developed and in use since the Industrial Revolution.

The work world is different than before. The civic world is different. Families are different, too. Communities and economies are as well. Our models of learning and education can’t be designed to fit an outdated version of the world and expect to be successful. Does that new model mean attendance matters less? What if it meant better enrollment? As Seth Godin notes:

Engagement is the delight we have when we lean into the process. Engagement happens when social media is optimized for maximum focus, and it also can be seen in a student who’s in sync with a teacher who cares.

Enrollment is a commitment to change. Enrollment in the process means we’re willing to push through the difficult parts because the outcome is part of our goal.

I don’t have a model to replace the current one. But it’s fair to say that what we are doing now isn’t fit for purpose. Adding more to a model isn’t going to reduce classroom complexity; it’s only going to add to it.

It’s long past time to reconsider the current design and explore alternatives that better accommodate the complexity we see in today’s classrooms, enabling learners, their families, and educators to experience it in ways that are more beneficial.

So what does designing for classroom complexity look like? That’s for a future post. Watch this space.

Photo by Nathan Cima on Unsplash, Dom Fou on Unsplash,  Thomas Park on Unsplash